Brimeura

Family Hyacinthaceae. Name: named after the amateur botanist of the 16th century, Мари Бримёр.

Description: Brimeura is often called the Spanish hyacinth. Specialists place it in a separate genus that includes only two species occurring in the Mediterranean.

Perennial bulbous plants. Flowers are arranged in a loose raceme, nodding, pale blue to blue. Perianth bell-shaped or bell- to funnel-shaped; the perianth segments are slightly reflexed, fused from the base for two-thirds into a tube. Leaves all basal, narrow-linear, at the base sheathed by a single fused, membranous basal scale. Scape glabrous. Fruit — a rounded obconical capsule with an acute apex. Seeds rounded-triangular, black. Bulb with a convex basal plate, composed of a single fleshy closed scale; the outer scale is single, dry, membranous, closed.

The beauty and fragrance of the flowers have long attracted gardeners' attention and promoted the introduction of the plants into cultivation, first in their homeland in Spain, and since 1759 in England and other European countries.

Location: can grow in partial shade on well-drained soil. Cultivated in sites with good drainage.

Propagation: In autumn, overgrown clumps of bulbs should be divided and the bulbs planted in groups at a depth of 6–8 cm and at a distance of about 10 cm. Propagated by seed, bulbils, and leaf cuttings. Seeds germinate 3–4 months after sowing; seedlings flower in the third year. Produces abundant fruit, forms bulbils and has the ability to regenerate — forming adventitious buds on leaves and scales. The bulb, 2–2.5 cm in diameter, with a single fleshy scale, is renewed annually.

Use: especially good in mass plantings on rock gardens. Frost-hardy. Tested in Saint Petersburg.